They Almost Eloped, Then Brought 40 Loved Ones to a French Château: Holly & James’s Wedding at Château de Nainville-les-Roches
- Author: Natali Grace Levine
- Wedding date: 05/16/2026
- City: Paris
Love Story
Their story opens with a near miss. In 2017, a well-meaning friend from church in San Francisco tried to introduce Holly to James, but Holly, freshly out of a long relationship, politely declined. Timing, as it so often does, had other plans. Two years later, another friend brought them back into the same circle, and they formed a friendship with surprising ease. By 2020, it had become something more, sealed in the most cinematic way imaginable. “In 2020, James asked me to be his girlfriend on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean — it was magical,” Holly recalls. Six years on, the couple has traded the West Coast for New York City, and the romance has only gathered momentum.
Holly is a sales account manager at a sustainable bag company, a job she describes with genuine affection. Away from work, she is happiest with her hands busy and her curiosity fed: crafting, seeking out new bakeries and spending time with the couple’s two miniature dachshunds, KitKat and Lottie, whose antics she lovingly calls silly. That maker’s instinct would later shape the wedding in quietly remarkable ways, from the stationery to the welcome table.
The proposal on Lake Como began under grey skies. After a punishing travel day, the couple arrived in cold, relentless rain and reached their hotel thoroughly soaked. By morning, the weather had turned golden, and James suggested, with studied casualness, that Holly might want to dress up. He led her through the gardens of Villa Melzi to its celebrated pagoda, and there the plan revealed itself in the most charming way. “I turned around and saw a photographer behind a bush, smiling sheepishly back at me while trying to hide,” Holly laughs. Knowing what was coming did little to steady her nerves; when James knelt with the ring, she could barely process his words before answering yes. Back at the hotel, her best friend Kevin and his fiancée Jeanette waited with champagne and a room strewn with rose petals, the perfect finale to what Holly calls the perfect proposal.
About Your Wedding
There is something disarming about a bride who never dreamed of a wedding and then created one this exquisite. Holly and James originally planned to elope, with nothing more than the two of them and a quiet promise. On reflection, they realized how much they wanted their family and friends beside them, and the idea of a small, deeply personal celebration in France took shape. After a year and a half of planning, 40 guests gathered at Château de Nainville-les-Roches, and Holly still speaks of it with a touch of wonder. “Having our wedding in France at a beautiful chateau was such a dream and I still can’t believe we were able to experience that with all of our loved ones,” she says.
Once she committed to the idea, Holly approached it with an editor’s eye. “Once I started planning, I knew I wanted something timeless and intentionally curated with our personal touches,” she explains. She landed on a French-elegance aesthetic with a fresh, spring-like lightness, and its visual foundation came from an unexpected source: the wedding website James designed. Holly carried its motifs into the welcome table, the menus and the guest gifts, so that every detail spoke the same graceful language.
Not every decision came easily. The rentals proved the most difficult, as the couple weighed what was essential against what would simply make their guests feel cared for, without quite being able to picture the final result. In the end, it all came together beautifully. For guests who had crossed an ocean to be there, Holly and James wanted one feeling above all: that the journey had been worth every mile, and that the memories would last. Their own verdict on the day is wonderfully succinct: they would repeat everything.
Morning Details
The couple created much of what guests held that day. Holly and James designed their invitations together, and Holly personally handled the rest of the stationery, from the welcome table and bar menu to the name place cards and dinner menus. Drawn from the same visual identity as their wedding website, each piece felt like a chapter of one cohesive story, carried from the first save-the-date to the final course.
The color palette was equally personal. Cornflower blue and butter yellow, the couple’s two favorite colors, brought a soft, sunlit freshness to the château’s classic interiors. As the morning unfolded quietly inside its walls, with each of them preparing in a separate room, the house seemed to hold its breath, suspended in that rare, sweet anticipation that comes just before everything begins.
Bride Getting Ready
Holly prepared in one of the château’s most romantic rooms, a light-filled space of gilded moldings, tall French windows and a glittering chandelier. The setting needed little embellishment, and Holly let its natural elegance set the morning's tone, her gown waiting by the window as the gardens stretched out beyond the glass.
The dress itself had been a long pursuit. “I went to almost every bridal salon in New York City and just couldn’t find a dress that felt right for me,” Holly admits. In a city with no shortage of bridal options, nothing captured what she had in mind, so she chose to have a bridal salon in Vietnam custom-make her gown. The result was a design created entirely around her, completed with a cathedral-length veil that drifted beautifully through the château’s grand interiors and felt made for the setting.
Groom Getting Ready
James’s room offered a striking counterpoint: walls covered in rich floral wallpaper, framed by deep red velvet curtains, with the warmth of a classic French salon. Against this backdrop, he dressed in a black double-breasted tuxedo, a crisp pleated shirt, and a black bow tie, an impeccable, understated look of tailoring. The photographs capture him composed and focused, with flashes of a broad smile that betrayed his excitement. It was a quietly confident start for a groom who, within the hour, would be overcome with emotion.
First Look
The couple’s first look took place in the château’s foyer, at the foot of its grand staircase, a setting that might have been designed for exactly this moment. What followed is the memory Holly treasures most. Asked about the moment she will remember most from the entire wedding, she answers in a single phrase: “Seeing James cry during our first look.” After years of friendship, a proposal in the gardens of Lake Como, and a wedding planned across an ocean, the emotion simply couldn't be contained, setting the tone for a day defined by feeling rather than formality.
Photoshoot Before The Ceremony
Before the ceremony, the newly reunited couple retreated upstairs for portraits, choosing a room crowned by a gorgeous chandelier and tall windows overlooking the château grounds. Photographer Aude Lucas used soft daylight streaming in from the gardens to create intimate, luminous images that feel closer to a fashion editorial than a traditional wedding portrait. Away from guests and schedules, the couple had a rare, unhurried moment together, a few stolen minutes above the world before the vows began.
Ceremony
The ceremony took place in the open air, in front of the château, with 40 of the couple’s closest family and friends gathered before them. Live strings from a Parisian violinist and string ensemble set the mood, and Holly walked down the aisle to “Best Part” by Daniel Caesar featuring H.E.R., a tender, modern choice against the château’s historic façade. The couple also wove their Korean heritage into the day in a way that was both elegant and deeply meaningful. “We tried to incorporate some Korean traditions such as our mothers wearing hanboks and gifting them a symbolic norigae,” Holly explains. The sight of both mothers in hanboks, set against the classic lines of a French château, became one of the most poignant images of the celebration, a graceful union of two cultures and two families.
Photoshoot After The Ceremony
As newlyweds, Holly and James stepped outside for portraits in front of the château and beside its fountain. “We really wanted to capture the moment with the beautiful château in the background,” Holly says, and the setting delivered with effortless grandeur. The symmetrical façade, the play of water, and the open sky created a classic, timeless backdrop, exactly the kind of image the couple had imagined when they first pictured a wedding in France. These are photographs designed to be looked at for decades, and they capture the day’s quiet sophistication perfectly.
Wedding Venue & Decor
Château de Nainville-les-Roches gave the celebration its sense of occasion. With its sweeping staircase, light-filled gilded rooms, and manicured grounds anchored by a fountain, it offered the romance of a French country estate while staying intimate enough for a gathering of 40. For guests who had traveled from across the world, it delivered the kind of setting that instantly makes a long journey feel worthwhile.
The décor allowed that architecture to shine while adding a distinctly personal note. The cornflower blue and butter yellow palette lent the classic interiors a fresh, almost springtime brightness, softening their grandeur without competing with it. Holly’s handmade stationery and thoughtfully chosen rentals completed the picture, creating a celebration that felt polished and refined yet unmistakably theirs.
Reception
For their first dance, Holly and James chose “It Had to Be You” by Ray Charles, a song as timeless as the setting itself. Bre Patisserie made the wedding cake, and a DJ kept the dance floor alive late into the evening. Yet the night's unexpected star was a claw machine. Holly confesses she had her doubts about whether anyone would actually use it, but it turned out to be a huge hit, a playful flourish that captured the couple’s sense of fun amid all the elegance.
Looking back, the couple is effusive about the team that brought their vision to life. “Every vendor wowed us; they exceeded our expectations and were lovely to work with,” Holly says. She reserves particular gratitude for planners Audrey and Vanessa of Dream Paris Wedding, whose professionalism and thoughtfulness made the couple feel cared for at every stage. The day’s beauty lives on through the lens of photographer Aude Lucas, whose work is a masterclass in light and restraint. Her images move effortlessly between intimate, emotional moments and the grand scale of the château, capturing the celebration with the polish of a fashion editorial and the warmth of a family album. For two people who once imagined nothing more than a quiet elopement, the result was a wedding of rare grace and warmth, proof that sometimes the celebration you never planned on having becomes the one you would not change for anything.
Wedding Team
- Photographer Aude Lucas
- Planner @dreamparis_wedding
- Content Creator @behind.the.paris.wedd
Are you sure you want to delete this project?
Cancel
Other Real Weddings
Chișinău
11/03/2026
Wedding
Porto
11/02/2026
Wedding
San Jose
10/26/2026
Wedding
Galway
10/16/2026
Wedding
Montpellier
10/13/2026
Wedding
Bucharest
10/13/2026
Wedding
Nairobi
10/06/2026
Wedding
Lake Garda
10/02/2026
Wedding
New York City
09/28/2026
Wedding
New Orleans
09/24/2026
Wedding
Campi Salentina
09/22/2026
Wedding
Lake Como
09/18/2026
Wedding
Austin
09/15/2026
Wedding
Show More
